Datasheet

TAKING A GUIDED TOUR

Figure 1.9

The toolbar

shortcut menu

3. You won’t need the View toolbar right now, so go ahead and close it by clicking the X in the

upper-right corner of the toolbar.

You may have noticed that the shortcut menu displays a check mark next to the name of a tool-

bar that is currently open (see Figure 1.9). You can click a checked toolbar name to close the tool-

bar. AutoCAD remembers your toolbar arrangement between sessions. When you exit and then

reopen AutoCAD later, the AutoCAD window appears just as you left it.

NOTE If your drawing becomes too cluttered with toolbars, you can drag a toolbar to the border of

the AutoCAD window, and it will automatically merge with the border. This is called its docked posi-

tion. If you don’t want the toolbar to dock but instead want it to appear floating near the border of

the AutoCAD window, you can do the following: First, change the shape of the toolbar to conform

to the orientation of the border. Do this by clicking and dragging the toolbar’s border. Next, press

and hold the Ctrl key as you click and drag the toolbar into position near the border. This prevents

the toolbar from automatically falling into a docked position.

Menus versus the Keyboard

Throughout this book, you’ll be told to select commands and command options from the drop-down

menus and toolbars. For new and experienced users alike, menus and toolbars offer an easy-to-remember

method for accessing commands. If you’re an experienced AutoCAD user who is used to the earlier ver-

sions of AutoCAD, you can type commands directly from the keyboard. Most of the keyboard commands

you know and love still work as they did.

Another method for accessing commands is to use accelerator keys, which are special keystrokes that open

and activate drop-down menu options. You may have noticed that the commands in the menu bar and the

items in the drop-down menus all have an underlined character. By pressing the Alt key followed by the key

corresponding to the underlined character, you activate that command or option without having to engage

the mouse. For example, to choose File  Open, press Alt, then F, and then finally O (Alt+F+O).

3738x.book Page 15 Monday, June 25, 2007 11:37 PM